2  Welcome to RIPLRT Institute

Welcome to the The RIPLRT Institute, a Respiratory and Immunology Project and Laboratory Research Team. Whether you are a returning member or this is your first day, we are glad you are here.

This chapter orients you to what kind of place we are, what you can expect from us, and what we will ask of you in return.

2.1 What RIPLRT is

The RIPLRT Institute, often referred to simply as the RIPLRT, is a research group, a learning environment, and a scientific home. We are a mentee-powered group at the interphase of environmental health and biomarker discovery to improve society’s respiratory and immune health — and how to convert that understanding into tools that protect people, especially in communities that carry the heaviest environmental burden.

You joined because of the science, and our values and principles. We hope you stay because you feel valued, connected, mentored, and part of work that matters. Belonging is not a perk here; it is part of how we do good science. People who feel safe ask better questions, surface mistakes earlier, and take the creative risks that move projects forward.

While you are with us, you will develop skills across several domains:

  • Scientific: environmental exposure science, immunology, respiratory and cardiovascular health, biomarker discovery and interpretation, and study design.
  • Computational: R and Python, reproducible analysis, version control with Git/GitHub, dashboards, and AI/ML methods used responsibly.
  • Professional: scientific writing, giving talks, building posters, presenting at conferences, and communicating science bilingually to non-specialist audiences.
  • Human: career guidance, collaboration, feedback, mentoring others, and navigating team science.
  • Ethical: research integrity, data governance, responsible AI, and strategic self-presentation.
  • Project management: planning, delegation, timelines, and ownership of research products.
  • Career development: grant-writing, networking, and building a path toward your next step after RIPLRT.
  • Equity: understanding and addressing health disparities, building an inclusive research culture, and translating science in ways that serve the communities most affected by environmental health risks.
  • Grant-writing: contributing to the grant process, from preliminary data and figures to specific aims and biosketches, and pursuing fellowships and trainee awards.
  • Strategic communication: framing your work and the group’s work in ways that lead with credentials and institutional value, not personal advancement, and that position new work as a forward progression rather than a reprise.
  • Strategic self-presentation: building a professional identity that is credential-forward and self-decentered, able to survive scrutiny without sounding defensive.
  • Strategic mindset: approaching your work with a growth mindset, learning in public, and embracing the idea that mistakes are part of the process and hiding them is the only unrecoverable error.
  • Leadership: leading projects, leading meetings, mentoring others, and leading with empathy and clarity.
  • Other skills that we identify as important to your growth and development.

2.2 Our entity structure

Understanding who we legally are matters because it determines whose policy, whose IRB, and whose name govern your work.

  • Felix E. Rivera-Mariani, PhD, LLC — the parent entity (FL #L21000280781; PR #467494). All RIPLRT Institute activity operates under this LLC.
  • RIPLRT Institute — A Respiratory and Immunology Project and Laboratory Research Team. A scientific research-and-mentoring DBA of Felix E. Rivera-Mariani, PhD, LLC. The Institute is not a department, lab, or administrative unit of Lynn University.
  • Educational Biomarker Discovery Lab (EBDL) — the branch through which RIPLRT research is conducted within Lynn University. EBDL work is governed by Lynn University policy, IRB, and sponsor terms.
  • Lynn University — institutional home of the EBDL and of Lynn-affiliated members.
  • University of Puerto Rico (UPR) — collaborating institution. UPR-affiliated mentees are mentored under the RIPLRT Institute but remain governed by UPR institutional policy and IRB, and by any applicable collaboration or data-use agreement. Dr. Rivera-Mariani holds a secondary appointment (Associate Professor, Ad Honorem) at Department of Microbiology and Immunology of the School of Medicine of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Medical Sciences Campus, which serves as the IRB of record for some projects.
ImportantWhich umbrella are you under?
  • Lynn University students and trainees (undergraduate, graduate, early-career scientists) work under the EBDL umbrella and follow Lynn University policy and IRB.
  • UPR-affiliated, other external, or independent mentees (undergraduate, graduate, early-career scientists) are mentored directly under the RIPLRT Institute and remain governed by their home institution’s policies.

If you are unsure which applies to you, confirm with the PI before you begin project work or touch data. See Chapter 12 and Chapter 20.

2.3 What you can expect from us

  • A clear sense of how your work connects to the RIPLRT’s mission.
  • A mentored and defined development pathway, not just a task list.
  • Honest, timely, and constructive feedback.
  • Credit for your contributions, governed by transparent authorship rules (see Chapter 15).
  • A psychologically safe environment where you can ask “naive” questions and disagree with the PI, and peers, without fear.
  • Support for your growth, including conference travel, professional development, and help with next steps after RIPLRT.

2.4 What we expect from you

  • Read this manual and sign the acknowledgment form within your first 7 days.
  • Bring curiosity and reliability. Do what you say you will do, and communicate early when you can’t.
  • Learn in public. Own mistakes quickly; we fix them together. Hiding a mistake is the only unrecoverable error.
  • Respect people’s time — show up to meetings prepared, meet deadlines, and renegotiate responsibly when life intervenes.
  • Protect integrity and privacy. Follow our data governance, IRB, and authorship rules without exception.
  • Be a good teammate. Communicate openly, give and receive feedback, and help each other.
  • Be a person. We are scientists, but we are also people with lives outside the lab. Bring your whole self, and respect others’ whole selves. Each of us is a person first, scientist second.
  • Help each other. What is done in isolation is usually done better in partnership.

2.5 How this manual came to be

This manual is the 2026 Edition (v2.0). It is the direct descendant of the 2018 RIPLRT Lab Manual and its 2021 revision, which were inspired by the open lab-manual movement and built reproducibly in R and Quarto. We have preserved the parts that made the original strong — the welcoming tone, our values, our commitment to integrity, open science, reproducibility, and clear authorship — and modernized everything else for who we are now: a hybrid computational and translational research and mentoring group operating across the RIPLRT Institute and affiliated entities.

NoteA living document

This manual is a work in progress, and that is by design. If something is unclear, outdated, or missing, that is an invitation to improve it. Talk to the PI, your mentor, or any group lead — or open a GitHub issue. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Welcome to RIPLRT. Let’s get to work!